Posted by SueTLC

There are new totals today marking the financial success of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Variety is reporting that Warner Bros has announced that HBP “grossed a magical $58.4 million from 4,275 theaters as it opened
Wednesday at the domestic B.O., including a potent $22.2 million in
midnight shows.”

The piece also notes that HBP “was pacing well ahead of the $44 million earned by “Harry Potter
and the Order of the Phoenix” on its opening Wednesday exactly two
years ago. “Order of the Phoenix” posted a five-day opening gross of
$139.7 million…Forecasts for the five-day opening vary. Some are predicting
“Half-Blood Prince” would post a five-day domestic opening of $125
million to $150 million, while others put it higher.”

On the international front, Variety points out that Half-Blood Prince “is opening day-and-date in every major overeas territory.
“Harry Potter” films have been even more successful overseas, and no
one’s willing to handicap how high “Half-Blood Price” will go in
foreign realms. “Order of the Phoenix” grossed $646.2 million
internationally and $292 million domestically. Early estimates
showed “Half-Blood Prince” grossing north of $3.2 million in Australia,
the third best opening day gross ever after the last two “The Lord of
the Rings” pics.” TLC reader Verity owled to point out this additional article from the Australian opening that they have the number as 4.37 Million and the figure “is also the highest Wednesday result of all time in Australia, and the highest opening day figure on a non-public holida

90 Responses to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Takes in 58.4 Million Opening Day

chexican09 says: Wow thats a ton of money! Congrats
1st - I think :DMr. Brightside says: That's a lot of money. I'm quite sure that Half-blood prince will break pretty much every financial record.Petra says: wow, this is fantastic... GO, HBP!!!T-Vey says: Yay! I went twice on opening day- the midnight show and also mid-afternoon! (midnight shows always have the better audiences)
"pacing well ahead of OotP"... thats great news! but how are the numbers compared to PS/SS, the highest grossing film?? jw..emdash84 says: Awesome! Here's to a great five-day debut! Lets keep breaking records! AND a big thanks to David Yates for yet another wonderful film. And to Daniel... you just keep on getting better and better, you are brilliant... keep on shining.superman82 says: Awesome, now I just need a chance to see it.emmalinnankivi says: woot woot! I knew this would happen! :DLiderc says: It's funny going to the midnight showing, then going to like the 7:30pm one the next day. Audiences act so different.Wicked_Lady says: I went yesterday at 6:30 p.m. and the audience sucked! I swear I was the only one laughing at times. I really enjoyed the movie and can't wait to buy it on DVD so that I can enjoy more by myself. Looie says: Yes! Go HBP! Break those records! :)Veinic says: hahaha audience sucked for me too. i want to go again hopefully with a better and more enthusiastic audienceVeinic says: hahaha audience sucked for me too. i want to go again hopefully with a better and more enthusiastic audiencelau399 says: That's a lot of cash!!!!!! damn.....WB seems not to get affected by the bad economy!!!!lau399 says: That's a lot of cash!!!!!! damn.....WB seems not to get affected by the bad economy!!!!Mosu says: woohoo! :)
but im still somewhat disapointed : /girlatty1 says: That's very good for weekdays. Friday and Saturday yet to come.kamidee says: Mother of Merlin! That's a lot of Galleons!determinedflygirl says: my audience sucked too (not that they didn't respond cuz they did) ... too many little kids that kept making a ton of noise. keep the babies at home folks.levi-OH-sa not levio-SA says: glad i helped with that number! LOLjrivas1284 says: Best news of the day!!!!!!!! Cingratz!!!!!garyvc says: Our audience was pretty good at 3:30 PM. It ranged in age from 6 to the 80s. The little girl sitting next to me said the movie was good but the ending was horrible. Guess she hadn't read the book. One odd thing was that the sound during the dialog was soft. We will go see it in IMAX in a few weeks and see if the sound is any better.ScarStruck says: yaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyHPNAIV says: I went at midnight and my audience was really good. But I went at 4 PM yesterday again and that audience wasn't. I was like only one laughing at the pincers part!DiamondWings says: That's fantastic!!! WOW!!! pinkmoosely says: Doesn't surprise me, people have been waiting a long time for HBP to arrive.
I just hope they don't get too keen on the idea of a very long wait for 7 or an unnecessary gap between 7 & 8!Calynthe says: pwnage!dingy0413 says: I tried to go at midnight but missed it, so I went to the 11:00 pm later that night. My audience was "ok". They laughed at a couple parts when it was funny. But I guess they weren't as hyped up as the midnighters. I'm going again on Sunday to go watch it. 2nd time I watch a movie I catch so much more. :)dingy0413 says: I tried to go at midnight but missed it, so I went to the 11:00 pm later that night. My audience was "ok". They laughed at a couple parts when it was funny. But I guess they weren't as hyped up as the midnighters. I'm going again on Sunday to go watch it. 2nd time I watch a movie I catch so much more. :)woodersongal says: Could you expect anything less???rawdude21 says: I went to a midnight showing and had an excellent crowd. I was however disappointed that Charlie and Fleur were not mentioned at all. Their wedding is right in the begining of "The Deathly Hallows". How did they meet and what's going on? Who is this dude and why is he deformed are a few questions that audience members are going to be asking if they never read the books.Callisto Lamia says: Hey, why so happy about WB making all that dough? I think with all the money spent and made, they could and should have ended up with a better movie that this! I am very disapointed by it. A lot of important scenes are left out: the DA fighting the DE, a lot of the "pensieve" scenes, to mention only a few... and at the same time they invent stuff to the storyline, mix things up (Luna saving Harry on the train...) Yes ist was fun and the crowd I went with (60something fans/friends all dressed up and having a great time), but still I wish they would have done better... :( It's kinda sad!lilyjames says: the midnight crowd i went with was fantastic some were dressed up thats the first i have ever went to a mid night showing of :) people laughed at everything i thought was funny and some even laughed at stuff i didnt :) when they were in the green house HArry SIR my friends about died!! it was great i loved it! JadeDanielle says: Wow!
Amazing! Go HBP :Dender650 says: Looking good, there really isnt anything being released anytime soon that will severely compete against HP so it should do very well. I cant wait to see the international numbers because they're always very good for HP.danaskeeter says: Amazing amount of money! I'm not surprised.PadfootLover4ever says: For it being a midnight showing when i saw it the audiance was lame. There was no clapping. I remember last year for OOTP people were clapping and booing and everything. But I did hear sobs when DD died. I admit I cried too. I am going to see it again later today or tomorrow. Wonderful movie...for the most part.fngw417 says: I am part of that and will be adding more when it comes out in IMAX in my area!Aurelia09 says: Am I alone in feeling so disappointed and let down by this adaptation. Hey it's called the Half Blood Prince. No explanation and hardly any Snape. What happened to the polyjuice Harry Potters, Hedwig lives.. no Bill Weasly/Fleur.. why was Tonks hair normal colour and she appeared to be married or in a relationship with Lupin already. Why that scene with the Weasley home being burnt down, this did not happen... I can go on and on. After waiting all this time I saw a film that bore hardly any resemblance to the novel with lots of bits missing, characters missing and unnecessary bits of film put in. A very disappointing let down... minishiva says: This is the best movie so far next to Prisioner of Azkaban. It deserves all the hype.WON_TWO says: No surprises here...Fereverto says: I'm glad it's such a big success, but I wonder how they're going to explain what the rest of the horcruxes are supposed to be. I don't believe they mentioned at all the objects Dumbledore suspected they were so that Harry has some idea of what he is looking for. I suppose they're saving that for the next installment. :/beewell says: Went yesterday afternoon and the audience was great! Had lots of laughs and a few jumps during the movie. Sure is a lot of money and I am sure that they will make more! Since it was pushed back, fans can't wait to see it and will do anything to go. Thank goodness for David Yates who made the film great. Now I can't wait to see it again and buy the DVD.Aurora_7 says: Well done HP and WB, good film.coloradowolfpack says: omg. are you people serious. they totally screwed up the movie. i was very disapointed in the film and with jk for letting this fiasco of a movie to be released.gryffindor1991 says: WOW thats alot of money. I went to see it earlier today. It was the best movie I ever saw.hericus says: I enojoyed the film, but they left soo much out. like the whole begining was completley wrong... no dursleys :(, wasnt much info about greyback he looked scary but no one said anything about him, No crabbe and goyle that took polyjuice potion to look out for malfoy, the cave wasnt as good as it could of been and i thought it was a green liquid? no fight at the end after snape kills him they just run out of the school, no funeral. I also wished they showed the memory about when dumbledore went to visit the house of gaunt and explained about the ring in more detail! Not the best film out of the lot but i still liked it even if it wasnt very reliable to the book! coloradowolfpack says: i have to addresss some other peoples comments.
first: charlie and fluer where never together it was bill and fluer. Next: the polyjuice harries are in the deathly hallows not half blood prince. lupin and tonks were not together yet and tonk's hair was mousy in this one; dumbledore does not explain to harry what all the horcruxes are, he only lets harry know his oppionion.
I am very diss apointed that percy and his estrangement with the weasley family is never mentioned and the fact that the movies are increasingly becoming their own entity away from the books. I mean if jen hid the book than how is harry supposed to find ravenclaws diadem? this movie is all screwed up!Aurelia09 says: In the film Tonks and Lupin were together and Tonks explained that the first night of the full moon was worse for Lupin. She acted concerend like his wife.. and her hair was supposed to be a different colour not mousey. She did not act like she was love sick for him. The film has already paired them off together. It should have been mainly about Snape... what we got was a feeble ' I am the half blood prince' which is meaningless to anyone who has not read the book. maimiaa says: whoa. that's a lot of money. i know i'ma go see it again hahahericus says: To coloradowolfpack if you were refering to my comment about dumbledore explaining all the horcruxes (Im not sure if you were) I never said all of them but in hbp the book it tells us about the rings history and why its so valuable to tom riddle, in the film dumbledore just said it was from his mother and it was hard to find... =]got2lovme says: All that in one day? I could only imagine how much the total will be for this weekend.Verity Weasley says: Yay, I was mentioned in the article! I finally got to send Leaky a news tip!coloradowolfpack says: to felix, that irritates me that more was not disscussed about the horcruxes. but i was talking about the fact that he only had an idea what the others were.Hermione Elizabeth says: Us Harry Potter fans stay loyal.... don't we?! haha :)coloradowolfpack says: i am loyal to the books, not movies that trash the books or make up things that don't belong.Jillxoxo says: The cineplex I attended has the film playing in five of its theatres with a starting time every half hour - and every showing has a long line. I can't wait to see the weekly box office numbers!angelvoice says: That's so exciting.
BwaySaint says: I saw it at midnight and going again tomorrow - still plan on seeing it at least once more after that and then once more in IMAX. I'm sure there will be a LOT of repeat attendees!BeAchL0veEr05 says: I'm $22 dollars of that opening day! Saw it twice- once at midnight, and once at 6 PM! Midnight audience was awesome!!!
Hope it breaks every record! :)Shalanarah says: YAY!!!! HP RULES!!!Ready for some quidditch says: I went at midnigh and then again tonight. the audience tonight totally sucked most of the time i was laughing by myself.alegria35 says: A sign that however low the economy is, people will still like to watch quality and familiar movies.
Congrats!chanman says: I watched the half blood prince yesterday. It was overall a really great movie. Really funny! Everybody on this site is so much of a HP fan they wouldn't say the movie was bad (yes me included). One problem i had with the movie though was at the end the scene was way to short. All of the sudden dumbledore was shot down and harry ran out of the castle, screamed at snape and it was done. In the book harry has to fight his way through death eaters and spells flying everywhere. In the movie there wasn't anyone in the castle! The end seemed rushed and they wavered from the books a bit too much. I overall really liked it though. Great job by Tom Felton and Michael Gambon!deadtree says: aww, didn't beat Transformers :\wwfanimals says: just imagine how much they will earn for deathly hallows!Aradion says: That sounds great! Well, I expected nothing less, the film is great... HBP just rocks!
pem660 says: I am really surprised at some of the comments. The film was slow moving, scripting was weak and the actors had no chance to shine. The story switched with little continuity. I suspect that the length of the book defeated the ability of the film makers - pity. It does suggest that Hallows will be well worth seeing as the split should assist in the story line. The special effects were very good.Broomsnitch says: I wish it would have beaten The Dark Knight! MidnightSun321 says: WOW!!!! a lot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!pottershrink says: I am suprised at some of the negative comments here - I thought the movie was great (tho I still think Goldenberg stayed truer to Jo's work than Kloves).
I also think we rabid fans should recant some of our speculations. For example, the spectraspecs didn't see through a Hallow (remember, we all thought that it would and booed the movie-makers for their ignorance and stupidity)! And Snape and Harry's behaviour in the lightning-struck tower scene does NOT give away which side Snape is on.
Eating humble-pie in a post movie glow :)jain says: i don't really care about the openning figures, weekend figures etc. The only figure of importance is when the film is no longer showing and we have a complete total.jamesalbuslily says: I thought the movie was great. I am really trying to trust the director as to what gets left out and changed. I was really impressed with the improvements in the acting esp. by the trio and Tom Felton. We all knew Rupert could do funny but Dan's humourous scene was a treat!x_Potter_Lover_Forever_x says: *WOW!*
That's a lot of money! It's because we had to wait so long l- everyone wants to get their Potter fix lol! :DMooChild says: I was definitely one of the midnight viewers when it came out in the Middle East ;)AndreaB09 says: YAY! im part of that 58.4!-MischiefManaged- says: I have now seen HBP three times in 36 hours and will be going back for more next week, I think. :) That said, I'm still not changing my favourite HP movie from Prisoner of Azkaban to HBP.
There are some very good moments in HBP -- such as Ron's Love Potion scene, especially his touchy-feely behaviour towards Professor Slughorn (LMAO) and Dumbledore's ring of fire in The Cave -- but there are also some rather cringe-worthy moments in it. WTF was that whole shoelace thing about, with Ginny kneeling to tie Harry's shoelaces?Livelaughlovepotter says: All I've got to say here is wow. HGROSS44 says: Well it may be a lot of money but it all get's used in one way or another. Just think of the amount of people it enployes. ther is nothing like this ever in the movie industry. This is something new to them. It alows them to do other movies that do not produce enough to cover the cost to make, and ther are a lot of duds out there. They are looking for the next JK to write some interesting books.chanman says: I went and saw it and this is how I describe it: At the beginning of the movie it was like someone had just given me a great big balloon. A balloon so glorious and brilliant that I couldâ€™ve jumped in the air and screamed for joy! (I didnâ€™t because there was a bunch of people trying to watch their movie). This balloon stayed giant and brilliant and I admired it for so long. It was as if this balloon was the only thing in the world that mattered or would ever matter. But then, towards the end, about at the end of the cave scene, someone put a little hole in my balloon! I began deflating slowly, almost unnoticeably at first until I looked at it and realized so much was missing form my glorious balloon. By the death scene of Dumbledore my balloon was starting to look disappointing, by the snape scene almost saddening, and by the end of the movie, depressing. On my way home all I had left was this deflated balloon. Sure, I had the memory of how great it had been, but imagine if I had got to taken it home completely glorious and inflated! Okay so this is a dramatization but the end really was disappointing for me. No Order of the Phoenix and death eater battle, no emotion in snape when he struck down Dumbledore, no Harry going crazy and storming through the castle to kill severus snape, no funeral, no honor to his dumbledoreâ€™s great memory. Donâ€™t get me wrong I still loved the movie because Iâ€™m a crazy harry potter fan and could do no less, but people who hadnâ€™t read the book wouldâ€™ve been like: â€œwhat the heck is going on?!â€ If I hadnâ€™t read the book I wouldnâ€™t have known how important feeling all the events were. It wavered from the book a bit much, and the climax couldâ€™ve been shinier. Good movie, but alas, couldâ€™ve been better. chanman says: Oh yeah not enough hagridchanman says: and it seemed that some characters were pointless, especially if you haven't read the book. Like the crazy werewolf guy who attacked bill and lupin and tonks didn't do anythingKimberlyZ says: $_$mynameisbrock says: yay harry potter ;) thats quite a chunk of change seeing as there were a few upsets in the moviemegan_702 says: WHOO HOO!! It beat Order of Phoenix at least! I'm hoping to buy the DVD for Hbp! I really hope 58.4 million will beat Twilight!megan_702 says: I meant to say "New Moon" instead of "Twilight"megan_702 says: wait no...i checked!! it did beat Twilight! HBP grossed 22 million for midnight showings and Twilight made 7 million....but unfortuantely it only got 58.4 million in the US so it's the second highest Wednesday opening of all time...and fourth highest single-day gross of all time! but it has the highest for single day worldwide gross!! :D But I'm sure that the 7th movie will have to beat all those records!! haha!! :Dsakuranbo07 says: For Dumbledore!cjdiddums says: wow thats cool, shame that the film wasnt really up to standards, i was very dissapointed. plus WTF wit syaing the ring was his mums it was his grandads his mum had necklace! and the stupid setting the house on fire... god i could go on for hours about how wrong it all was!hermyone08 says: that's so awesome and well deservedLoveTomRiddle says: BRILLIANT!